irregular time
by enparis
Summary: he's real. she's amelia. he's the raggedy doctor. and she's grown up and moved on. - amy's point of view of her first meeting/growing up/leaving with the doctor.


**A/N: just a little oneshot from an author who hasn't been on in aaages. i'm a little terrified of my old account and the horrible mary sues that younger me created, so hopefully i'm getting off to a fresh new start with this! i hope you enjoy! and i would really appreciate reviews – i've only started getting back to writing these past months and am looking to improve in any way possible.**

**disclaimer: guys, if i owned these characters i would be doing a lot more than writing stuff on about them. trust me.**

___

__"Five minutes! Give me five minutes, I'll be right back."  
>"People always say that."<br>"Am I people? Do I even look like people? Trust me. I'm the Doctor."____

  
>The little ginger girl stares at her watch. Her bag is packed full and serving as a rather lumpy seat while she waits as patiently as she can. Patience isn't something she's ever been lucky enough to posses. She isn't comfortable, not in the slightest and it's bitterly cold out. It doesn't matter. Of course it doesn't matter; there's a magical madman coming to whisk her away from bleak, dreary, English Leadworth. He has a swimming pool in a library in a box and he eats fish custard and doesn't like beans. Everything else is insignificant to her seven year old mind. Right now her life feels like a fairytale and she (along with her magical name) is the star.<p>

Who could ever convince her to stay?

No, her child's mind is made up. The wind swirls around her menacingly, as if trying to coax her back inside. __Amelia, maybe you should go to sleep. Maybe you should go back and close your eyes and live a normal, happy life and never have to worry about strange cracks in your wall and stranger men who come to fix them.__

No.

Shivering, she pulls her coat tighter around her and squares her jaw. Little Amelia Pond won't be fazed by something as silly as wind. She won't be frightened by a strange man coming into her house, eating all the food, spitting out all the food and examining the crack in her wall. Amelia Pond is a girl from a fairytale. She is strong and brave and defiant and whoever dares cross her better watch it because she's got the Raggedy Doctor on her side.

Her watch keeps digging into her wrist, as if it's trying to get her attention and make her check the time again. It was a birthday present from Aunt Sharon. She looks down at it, taking the time to properly examine it. On the face there's a cartoon character with a smile that's probably meant to be funny. To her it looks creepy and menacing and she decides not to check her watch again. While she likes to think it's because of the cartoon character a small part of her admits the truth - she doesn't like having to wait for him. Checking the time is a constant, annoying, reminder that he's not here yet.

He's sure to come soon.

No need to check, not really.

But, braving the cartoon character, she checks anyway. Just to be sure of the time.  
><em><br>___Five minutes.__

Any minute now, then. She wriggles about on her makeshift seat, grinning up at the stars and the moon. It feels like a late, midnight adventure. Soon it's going to get really exciting. Just a few more seconds. She beams.

__Ten minutes.__

She can forgive him for being late. Really, she can. Very forgiving, she is. (Mostly.) Maybe there's a problem with his box? She doesn't quite know what sort of problems boxes can have - has he lost the lid or something?

Or maybe he's still fishing the books out of the swimming pool and he needs to dry them off. Aunt Sharon once had to dry some of Amy's school books with an old hairdryer after she 'accidentally' left them out in the rain. Amy wonders if the Doctor's using a hairdryer to dry his books.

__Fifteen minutes.__

Oh, what's fifteen minutes? Only ten minutes later than five minutes and neither ten minutes, nor five minutes is a very long amount of time.

He'll be here any minute now.

__Twenty minutes___._

Maybe he isn't coming.

__No__, she tells herself off, __stop being silly Amelia___._ He will do the whooshy thing with his box again only this time he'll reappear instead of leave. He'll burst out and give her the widest grin of all wide grins. Next something mad and nonsensical and brilliant will make its way out of his mouth and even if she isn't quite sure what he's talking about, she will laugh and tell him again that he's weird - but a good weird, a Raggedy Doctor kind of weird. Then the Doctor and Amelia Pond will fly off in the magic blue box together and see the stars. She smiles to herself. It'll happen. There's no chance that she'll stop believing now.

__An hour and a half.__

Her eyelids droop. Part of her begins to wish she had listened to the wind.

Her watch is still digging into her wrist and she wants to rip it off and fling it to the ground. It must be wrong. Or she's wrong. Or even time itself is wrong because the Doctor, her Raggedy Doctor, is coming back for her.

The seconds seem to tick by ever so slowly but every single one is going far too fast for her liking. Ten minutes, fifteen, half an hour, forty minutes, an hour and three minutes, an hour and three minutes and thirty seconds.

It all seems so wrong and quick and slow and she can't even begin to make sense of it all because she's never been any good at time in school anyway - her maths teacher confuses her sometimes with all this talk of long and short hands.

It feels like time is against her.

Moving too slowly but too quickly.

Irregular time.

Maybe that's why the Doctor's caught up. Whatever it is, he must be really having trouble. Whatever it is, he'll still find a way to come back and take her with him.  
><em><br>___Six hours.__

Little Amelia jerks upwards, suddenly woken by the sound of birds cheeping and chirping in her back garden. Her face contorts and she gives the birds her best I'm-scary-and-angry-and-will-unleash-my-seven-year-old-fury-on-you face, which usually just makes people laugh at her. How dare they wake her up- wait a second. Wake her __up___?_ Oh no, no, no, no, __no. __What if he had been and come and decided to leave her because a girl who can't even stay up late enough to wait isn't important enough to come along with the Doctor.

Amelia sniffles. The lump in her throat makes her want to cry, but she's Amelia Pond. Amelia Pond doesn't cry. Amelia Pond __believes__. And oh boy, he will come back. Some day, he will come back for her. And she won't fall asleep.

__Twelve years.__

A banging door. The sound of uncoordinated feet thumping against an old wooden staircase. She jerks upward, scared and alert. Somebody was breaking into her house and she did not like it one bit.

There's a high pitched buzzing sound that sounds so very familiar and scares her even more that the prospect of a stranger breaking into her house. Because if that's here then he's here and- __"Amelia!"__Her thoughts are cut short by him calling her. Or rather, him calling for the little girl who waited all night for him. Well boy, was he in for a surprise. Sorry Doctor but that little girl isn't home today, you'll have to try again another day. Leave a message after the beep.

_"AMELIA!"_

Even the sound of her old name makes her angry and frustrated. How dare he stride back into her life after never coming back.

_How dare he even be real._

She stops, just for a second. _You've always know he was real_, Amy. And yes, he's real. He's real. She's Amelia. He's the Raggedy Doctor. And she has grown up and moved on.

There's a cricket bat in the back of her closet. Tempting. Teasing. All it takes is a snap decision and it's in her hands, ready for her to do some damage and sort out just what is going on. By... hitting him around the head. Yeah. Well. Snap decisions. Not always the best ones.

There's a tiny part of her that wants to admit it's just somebody playing a sick, twisted joke. She knows it's not possible and that he's definitely solid and real and making an awful racket downstairs. And it's not like she doesn't want her Raggedy Doctor back. It's just- I_t's just what, Amy? Scared he'll leave you again? Because now you've grown up and kissed people and bitten psychiatrists and got a sort of maybe boyfriend and you're Amy Pond. You've grown up and you don't need and imaginary friend. Imaginary friends are just for children, like little Amelia Pond._

Amy frowns and shakes her head, as if trying to dispell the thought from her head.

Cricket bat in hand, she creeps out into the corridor.

He turns.

It's definitely him - no sick prank here.

She hits him anyway.

_You're late_, she wants to say.

___

__"This matters. This is important. Why did you say six months?"  
>"Why did you say five minutes?"<em>_

_____

__"You're Amelia!"  
>"You're late!"<br>"Amelia Pond! You're the little girl!"  
>"I'm Amelia, and you're late."<br>"What happened?"  
>"Twelve years!"<em>_

_____

__"Who's Amy? You were Amelia!"  
>"Yeah, now I'm Amy!"<br>"Amelia Pond - that was a great name!"  
>"Bit fairy tale."<em>_

__"And what sort of job is a kissogram?"  
>"I go to parties, and I... kiss people. With outfits. It's a laugh! "<br>"You were a little girl five minutes ago!"  
><em>___

It's warmer out- summer now. Two years. It doesn't feel like it. To her, it feels like it was ten minutes that happened ten years ago. There was no time to properly understand it or enjoy it, he was there and then he was gone and Amy sometimes wonders if there had been something in the water that day and the whole town had imagined it.

Ten minutes for grown up Amy.

Five minutes for little Amelia.

Irregular time.

Segments of her life torn out and patched together like a rough patchwork quilt. Some day she wants to be able to look back and watch the pieces slowly fit together. Amy. Rory. The Raggedy Doctor. Leadworth. That blue box. One day she'll look back and everything about her life will make sense again. Her life won't be just messy memories and people who leave her scattered all over her life.

Then again, who is Amy Pond to ever be neat? Her hair, her room, her life, her relationships, her dreams, her imaginary friend. All messy and uncoordinated. Even the way time moves around her. Quickly, slowly, quickly, slowly, quickly, slowly. One minute everything is moving too fast and her Raggedy Doctor returns; he's mad, brilliant, strange and completely alien to dreary Leadworth; it's clear he has no plan and no idea- and doesn't that just excite her? -thrill, danger, finally living; he saves the day and she finally sees that maybe her whole life was just five minutes and she hadn't really grown up, she had made all the rest of it up in her head but him. Oh, he was real.

Then she'll catch sight of the engagement ring on her bedside table and realises that the reality is that this is the reality. And she's getting married soon.

Or Rory- lovely, sweet Rory -will call. Amy will smile and laugh and they'll talk about all the things they can think about (he'll pester her about wedding preparations again and she'll tease and tell him not to worry, Mr Williams because the soon to be Mrs Williams has it all under control) or they'll go out some place because Rory wants to spend all his money on her now that he's got a promotion to head will kiss in the park and act like horny teenagers in public - Amy will lead the way of course and while Rory sometimes wonders what the neighbours will say, he's pretty sure they've all seen them canoodling in public before. And anyway, how could he ever even dream of resisting Amy- beautiful, feisty Amy.

Her closet doors will swing open and who will she be today? A provocative police woman? A flirtatious french maid? Parties, clubs, bars. Lights that are too bright and music that's too loud. Lips that are too hard or too soft and kisses that are too rough or too sloppy. But still there's a sense of achievement because she's proving to herself that she's not little Amelia Pond any more. She grew out of that skin a long time ago but again and again she throws herself into her job because it makes her feel adult- more grown up. It makes Amy Pond more clear and defined in her mind and she will never be that little girl who was left behind again, oh no.

Life goes on.

Irregular time ticks by.

The pieces of her life don't slot together but they will. One day, they will.

(She hopes.)

And Amy Pond, the little girl who waited all night in her back garden with the time and the wind both against her, the much older girl who saved the world in twenty minutes with her imaginary friend who returned and made him trust her, the grown up woman who is engaged but still acts like a teenager, who kisses people for fun and money and because it makes her feel more grown up, Amelia Pond the girl who didn't make sense - she closes her eyes and goes to bed. Her wedding dress is hanging up on her wardrobe door. The small, dull village of Leadworth lies just outside her front door. The crack on her wall is still there, years and years- or is it only ten minutes? -later.

And later that night she'll be woken up by a familiar sound.

Amelia Pond will open her eyes and make her way outdoors in her nightie where he magical Doctor is waiting for her.

__  
><em>__  
><em>___"Amy Pond. The girl who waited. You waited long enough".  
>"When I was a kid, you said there was a swimming pool. And a library, and the swimming pool was in the library."<br>"Yeah, not sure where it's got to now. It'll turn up. So, coming?"  
>"No".<br>"You wanted to come 14 years ago."  
>"I grew up."<br>"Don't worry. I'll soon fix that."___  
>_<em>


End file.
